CVS

CVS has finally been retired at linux-mips.org. Currently the main project, the MIPS kernel, has been switched to git; others will follow. The anonymous CVS server will stay running so people can continue to do cvs diff and other operations but the content of the archive is frozen.

The "linux" repository contains a linux_2_2, linux_2_4 branch and Linux 2.6 on the trunk.

There used to be the linux-cvs and linux-cvs-patches mailing lists for information on what gets committed to this repository. Due to freezing the CVS archive there won't be any further postings to these lists which thus have been deleted. The archives however will be kept.

There is also the "malta/linux" repository which is a special tree especially tuned for stability on Malta. It's usually quite far behind the main linux repository and is being phased out in favor for full-blown Malta support in the main linux CVS tree which in turn has been superseeded by the GIT tree. To checkout a stable 2.4 kernel use the tag MaltaRef_2_4 and for 2.6 MaltaRef_2_6.

More on a historical note, there also is a linux-2.0 repository. The CVS Linux 2.0 version is a backport of the massive MIPS improvments during the 2.1 series which was created for Cobalt when it became clear that 2.2 would not be released in time to ship with the Cobalt products. Thus it only supports early versions of the Cobalt MIPS hardware. Of interest only to cyber archeologists.

Web CVS

Via cvsweb, you have direct access to the new Linux/MIPS kernel sources, and a few other projects hosted in the same CVS archive. The intuitive interface allows you to follow the development at the click of your mouse.

XCVS

XCVS runs nightly and generates patches for CVS commits made in the previous day. You can search patches through a variety of searching criteria. Click here to explore.

The Git CVS server

Git now has aquired the ability to deliver it's content over the venerable CVS protocol. While inferior in endless ways it's the easy way to stay uptodate for existing CVS users. Usage is slightly different, so here's a special cooking receipe. First, there is no need to do a cvs login, just use the username anonymous. Specify the git repository for the CVS repository and the git branch as the CVS module name. Example:

which will checkout the MaltaRef_2_6 branch from the linux-malta.git repository.

The RCS revision numbers of file versions are different between the CVS archive and the GIT-CVS archive. This means you cannot just switch an existing checkout from the CVS to the GIT-CVS server. Also note that because git-cvsserver may be very slow if it has to re-index the git tree. Depending on the size of the tree and if the branch has previously been indexed branch this may take a long time. If it happens, take this as fate's hint to switch to git. Git has a steep learning curve but you'll be glad you did.